Photo: Families of Syria’s forcibly disappeared people took a message to UAE’s embassy in London.
Today families of people forcibly disappeared in Syria held photos of their missing loved ones in front of the UAE’s embassy in London. They demanded that Syrian dictator Assad and his brutal regime are uninvited from next week’s COP 28 climate summit in the UAE.
Assad’s invitation to COP 28 is an insult to victims and survivors of atrocities in Syria who have already been utterly failed by the international community. Support them by signing the petition calling on the UAE to uninvite Assad.
Nevin Al-Mousa, a member of Families for Freedom whose brother Hamza has been missing since 2014, said: “How can a war criminal who has bombed his own people with chemical weapons, who has forcibly detained thousands, and who still attacks those who want peace and democracy, be invited to shake hands with world leaders?”
“Assad’s very presence at a summit on the future of our earth is absurd. It is an insult to the thousands who have lost their loved ones and the millions who have fled their homeland. Assad has no place deciding the future of our planet when he has committed countless war crimes with impunity and continues to attack the Syrian people.”
To suggest that Assad is interested in protecting our climate is ludicrous and his invitation undermines the COP 28 talks that are vital for people and our planet. If Assad does attend, it will be his first international summit since 2011, when his regime crushed the Syrian people’s uprising for democracy and dignity, and a grim step towards normalising his regime.
Over 7,500 people have already signed the petition to uninvite Assad, and together we can pile pressure on the UAE to change its stance. The UAE has several high-profile investments in the UK, including football teams and its airlines Etihad and Emirates, so it is invested in what you think. It probably won’t want this year’s COP to go down in history as a political PR show for a brutal dictator.